Parents gush about local astronaut son

Gregory C. Johnson will get his first view of Earth when he pilots the space shuttle Atlantis on a mission to the Hubble telescope Oct. 8.

Gregory C. Johnson (NASA.gov)

His father, former Boeing employee Raleigh Johnson, and Raleigh’s wife, Patsy – both of Mukilteo – plan to fly down to Florida to watch, reports The Herald of Everett.

In a pre-flight interview, Johnson, a graduate of West Seattle High School and the University of Washington, gushed to NASA about his folks:

My parents were really, really great about saying you could do whatever you wanted to do. You know, “You can do it.” And they were very big on doing the best at whatever you did. Whatever you decided to do, just do the best. That was sort of their overarching advice. So I always tried to do my best. Then I just naturally gravitated to kind of the scientific area as my interest. So from there it was flying. I ended up being an aeronautical engineer because I was interested in flying.